Buried in our MLS is a feature that I really like, the ability to get property histories. The screen print shows the history of a duplex that has been on and off, but mostly on the market for a year. Homes listed on the MLS are tracked using the tax ID number so there isn’t anyway to fool the system. Every home that is listed is tracked and builds a history. We can tell which Realtor had the listing and for how long.
The seller has dropped the price 6 times, but has not changed it since May. The most recent price reduction was three months ago. The records also show that she is now on her third real estate agent, two of them have failed and after three months the seller is most likely looking for agent number 4.
When I get a call from a seller who wants to change agents I ask a lot of questions, because it is expensive, and time consuming to market a home and I only get paid if it sells and after it closes. If I look and see a history like the one above, I ask tougher questions to determine what the seller is looking for in an agent and if there is any problem that may be slowing the sales process down.
It is always possible that the agent failed to market the property but if three of them failed I have to wonder if the agents are the problem. This history tells me quite a story and I am not entirely certain I would want to get involved. The red flags include the length of time each agent had the property listed, and some of the price reductions are so small that they probably did not have an impact.
On this particular property, I would recommend a price of $189,865, and since it has already been on the market for more than twice the amount of time it should take to sell, which is an average of about 170 days for a duplex in St. Paul, I would not take the listing unless the seller reduced the price. Another agent will take it and it will sell, but only after another price reduction. It isn’t me who sets the price, it is always the buyers.
Also see: Musical Signs
Twitter
Flickr
LinkedIn
Facebook
RSS
Posterous
Email
FourSquare
Yelp
SlideShare
You’re giving away your secrets.
I love these little looks into how the profession operates. What’s neat is that here you are communicating with each other, more or less, even though a lot of people reading this are your competition. Figuring out how to cope in this market has to be tough, so it makes sense. I hope everyone, sellers and buyers included, can use this to be rational about these things, even though home sales can be so very emotional.
Well done! Nothing magic about it, the market is below the asking price and the house doesn’t sell. If the rel estate market is falling, like it has been here in Ann Arbor, Michigan, then the property will be worth even less, 6 months from now.